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The Voidborn sped closer. In spite of myself, I retreated, but short of breaking through the rear wall of this gods-forsaken hovel and burning up in the sunlight, there was nowhere else to go.
“What…” I couldn’t maintain my composure nor hide the fear in my voice. “Why is it coming toward?—”
“No need to panic, pet.”
I looked at him in alarm, but he didn’t turn from watching the creature fly toward us. Closer. Closer. The Voidborn racing at us barely had a face, let alone anything resembling a body beyond the sinuous trail of smoke that was its form.
I swore I could see its gleaming eyes locked on me all the same.
My back bumped against the hovel wall. “Don’t you dare try to make that thing take me over like?—”
Alaric caught the Voidborn in one fist as it darted into the open doorway. Contorting in his grip like a snake, the creature didn’t resist as Alaric reached his other hand between the shimmering suggestion of metal teeth and straight into its mouth.
“What are you doing?” I demanded.
Grinning, Alaric drew out his hand again. Blood glistened on his skin.
My nose twitched. The blood wasn’t his. I could tell immediately the creature hadn’t bitten him. But the blood did smell… odd. Not human. Yet not from a vampire either. Not exactly, anyway.
I resisted the urge to step closer with curiosity. When hunger required it, I’d bitten enough of my own minions back in Lumilia to know the scent of a vampire’s blood with ease, and while this smelled partially of vampire, there was another indefinable quality that made it distinct.
Still smiling, Alaric lifted his hand and licked the blood from his skin.
A sharp shudder rolled through him, like a convulsion of disgust except his smile never changed. Under his breath, he made a hissing-clicking sound, and just as it had the night before, somehow my mind understood the noise was some sort of language. An incantation, perhaps, though I did not know for what purpose.
Again, he shuddered, harder this time, as if something hurt all over his body. In a strange, ghostly way, I could almost feel it, as if the leash passed the reaction on to me.
I recoiled from the feeling. It was abhorrent. Foul. I loathed having it anywhere near me, even if only as a ghost of sensation from that bastard.
As if noticing my revulsion, Alaric turned toward me, still gripping the Voidborn in his fist. His black eyes narrowed, scanning me and searching for the gods knew what. But after a moment, irritation passed over his face.
“What was that?” I asked.
Alaric didn’t respond. He only started toward me.
My back pressed harder against the wall of the hovel. Wood creaked behind me, threatening to break and spill me out into the sunlight where I would die.
He extended his other hand to me, traces of blood still on his skin. “Taste it.”
“I will do no such thing.”
“We are linked, pet. Thus it is as if you already did. But I would have you allow yourself to taste it fully now.” His metal teeth glinted in a grin. “Trust me.”
He was mad. “I refuse to?—”
His expression turned thunderous in an instant, his human-like skin shimmering toward that of an eel and his dark eyes flashing with rage. “Taste it!”
The tether of his magic tightened on me like a vise, crushing down on my insides and making me cry out with pain. I crumpled to the ground, my legs unable to hold me, and my vision swirled and danced with spots of darkness and light, making the world blur.
A cold hand took my chin, prying my mouth open. I couldn’t pull away fast enough. Blood smeared my teeth and lips.
The grip vanished.
I choked as I tasted the blood. It was vile. Wrong in a way that burned, as if its owner had poisoned it.
Hissing sounds came from above me. The incantation again.
In an instant, the burning grew worse. Spread into my skin. Coated me from head to toe, setting every inch of me on fire.
